December 5, 2024 • 19 mins
Today we discuss if it makes sense for brands to invest in influencer marketing and creator collaborations with Gabe Gordon, co-founder of Reach Agency. Gabe shares how his journey from the prestigious William Morris Agency led him to revolutionize brand storytelling through strategic influencer collaborations. Dive into a captivating case studies with Gabe that make the case for why working with creators makes sense for both B2B and B2C brands.
Explore the shifting dynamics between brands and creators and why respecting a creator’s unique vision can yield remarkable results. Learn about the profound impact of social commerce and the growing influence of creators in both B2C and B2B sectors. Gabe shares how brands are increasingly embracing creators not just as promoters but as integral parts of their business strategy.
Check out Gabe's web site - Reach Agency
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:01):
Today we are talking about creativity and the power
of influencers, and we have agreat guest to help us talk
through this today Gabe Gordon.
Welcome to the show.
Well, thank you for having me,eric.
So why don't we start off?
You have this amazingbackground.
Why don't we start off by youjust talking for a minute or two
(00:21):
, a little bit about who you areand what you and your agency do
?
Gabe Gordon (00:28):
Appreciate it.
So I started my career aftercollege, working at the William
Morris Agency.
I originally started in music.
I had studied marketing incollege, quickly learned that I
didn't want to do music anymoreand found this small group there
.
It was called CorporateConsulting at the time, but what
they did was they helped brandstell their story in the world
(00:48):
of entertainment.
So that was everything frommaking TV shows for the NFL to
making sure General Motors carowners were in things like the
Transformers movie.
I spent 10 years there and thatwas really sort of my
introduction to advertising and,frankly, creating content
people wanted to watch.
That also had a brand impact.
After 10 years, I decided toleave and I started Reach Agency
(01:11):
.
That was in 2011,.
Around the same time thatYouTube was really getting big
and YouTube had invested in,ironically, hiring traditional
Hollywood creators to createcontent besides, you know, cats
and laser beams and dogs onskateboards to attract
advertisers, and I saw this as afantastic opportunity.
It was everything I had beendoing, you know, but with a new
(01:33):
creative class and without thered tape of network ad sales or
big Hollywood studios.
Ironically, I did start theagency.
My first client was Purina, so,ironically, I was making a lot
of content with dogs not alwayson skateboards, but we did do
content of dogs on skateboardsand lots of stuff with cats.
(01:54):
And that was really thebeginning of the inspiration for
what did become Reach Agencythe ability to tell brand
stories on new platforms withthis new creative class.
That really had really bigbusiness impact.
Eric Eden (02:10):
Awesome, and you guys just got an award for small
agency of the year.
We did, we did Nice, and so theagency tell me, if I have this
right the agency works withinfluencers and brands to help
brands get their creativemessage out the right way.
Is that broadly what you guysdo?
Gabe Gordon (02:34):
Influencer marketing is an interesting
market, right.
There's shops with dualbusiness plans.
They represent creators andthey represent brands.
There's influencer marketingcompanies that just represent
creators.
We just represent brands.
We look at marketing companiesthat just represent creators.
We just represent brands.
We look at ourselves as more ofa strategic resource.
We are the AOR for certainbrands and what we do is we help
them upstream in their strategyto figure out how to use
(02:58):
creators beyond just sponsoredposts.
Right, and this is somethingthat's changed over the years.
When we first started, we'd gethanded a TV campaign and said
find some influencers to sharethis video.
Right, we're now.
Influencers really are the corein the beginning of the
campaign and and every otherpiece of creative is derivative
from that interesting how thefocus has really changed there
(03:25):
and we're ready to be inspired.
Eric Eden (03:26):
So perhaps you could share a story with us about the
work that you and your agencyhave done with some of your
brand clients, with influencers,that have had, you know, a
remarkable impact.
We're ready to be inspired.
I love it.
Gabe Gordon (03:41):
I've got a good one for you.
So one of our clients wasNatural Vitality.
They're a magnesium supplementmost popularly known for Calm
right, and they had realizedthat there was a much broader
opportunity for the brand,beyond just magnesium and beyond
just Calm right.
We live in a world where mentalhealth is at the top of
cultural awareness and it's partof the conversation, at the top
(04:04):
of cultural awareness and it'spart of the conversation and
their product.
They expand their productportfolio to help with focus,
not just sleep, to help you alsostay calm and get you
throughout your day right, andthey needed a big splash to
drive that messaging forward.
About the same time as we werein planning, we thought that the
popular Grammy award-winningrecording artist, little John,
(04:26):
had also been making a shift ofhis own.
He moved from shots in the club,coming out of the pandemic,
really falling in love withmeditation and mental wellbeing,
and we heard he was launching ameditation one.
And we said what better way tohelp show our change than
partnering with him andpartnering with him on his
journey to do that?
(04:46):
So we wound up putting him in afull campaign showing how
Little John himself turns downto turn up with the help of
Natural Vitality's full line ofproducts, but we also put on a
meditation retreat that wouldhelp support his album release.
That helped support his albumrelease.
It was a very immersiveexperience which had, you know,
(05:12):
tomtales, as we call them, withtheir product, live meditation
with him, even had massage bedsand sound baths, everything.
There was a lot of influencersinvited to join that, but it
really helped raise awareness,not only for the product, but we
also, you know, did bring in amental health expert, dr Patrice
, to talk with him about thatand talk about the importance of
(05:32):
it and made a donation to alocal organization Very cool.
Eric Eden (05:33):
So how many influencers were involved in
this and what sort of impact didit have for the brand?
Gabe Gordon (05:44):
Yeah, so John was really our hero partner on this
and I would say it's a greatsituation because it was what we
always strive for inpartnership, where we're not
just paying him to support ourproduct.
We were supporting something hewas doing in his career as well
.
So he really was a true partnerin that essence.
But to help amplify it, we didbring about 30 additional
(06:06):
influencers in the health andwellbeing space and the mental
health space to help bring thatstory to different.
You know segments of theinternet.
It was covered on live news.
I think we got over a billionmedia impressions.
You know, I think his organicvideo launching the partnership
got over a million views in 24hours.
(06:26):
We saw a significant brand lift, but overall this led to an
increase in sales for the brandand tons of earn.
Eric Eden (06:34):
So that was one of my questions is when people get
celebrities as influencers, orwell-known people broadly, or
well-known people broadly.
I'm just curious if yourexperience is that that
generally pays off for thebrands, is it worth the cost of
doing it?
(06:54):
In most cases, yes.
Gabe Gordon (06:57):
It all depends on what your objective is and you
know who the person is and whatyou're paying right and how
you're leveraging them acrossmedia.
If you're looking digital only,it gets a lot harder right
Versus the TV campaign becauseyou're not reaching as many
people.
That being said, you can reacha broad audience.
You know, with digital year wepartnered with Jessica Simpson
(07:23):
and Chicken of the Sea to remakesort of a very pop culture
moment you know from heroriginal show Newlyweds, where
she didn't know if Chicken ofthe Sea was chicken or tuna and
we finally brought her back withher daughter and that was huge
ROI for the brand right.
Being able to capitalize andbring back a cultural moment
that you know their consumerknew and grew up with and really
being able to bring it into abrand message and, you know,
(07:43):
help launch a new product forChicken of the Sea.
Eric Eden (07:47):
And so part of it is how well it's executed on in
terms of the creative and thecampaign overall too.
I'm sure that's a variable, andif it pays off for people right
.
Gabe Gordon (07:59):
Yeah, and celebrities.
Some of them will only do verylarge campaigns.
A lot of them will partner withbrands and just do a single
post or a couple posts.
Right, there's a lot ofdifferent ways to partner with
celebrities now, more than thereever has been, at our lower
touch, where you have the rightbrand fit.
Eric Eden (08:16):
So what advice do you give brands about working
with influencers broadly, likecelebrities and otherwise?
When you take on clients, Iknow you work with some really
big brands but really it seemslike a variety of sizes.
What are some of the commonadvice you would give about how
(08:37):
to make it work with influencersand celebrities?
Gabe Gordon (08:43):
Yeah, I mean, look, we're all in on creators.
We definitely work with a lotof celebrities where it makes
sense, but we are all in oncreators because they really are
revolutioning revolutionizingadvertising as we see it right.
We're seeing huge performancefrom them, you know, when it
comes to paying media on socialchannels and digital.
We all know that.
You know most people still skipads on social and creator
(09:07):
generated content is performingway better than, you know,
typical studio produceradvertising content.
Right, they really aredisrupting that Again.
They're solving this largerproblem of don't interrupt the
experience.
Become part of the experienceright.
And where brands are allowingcreators to really bring that
human experience right and bringthose emotions whether that's,
you know, humor, empathy,inspiration or even
(09:29):
entertainment, we're seeing theresults correlate to the
creativity that we're allowingthe creators to have that free
will.
So I think my biggest singlepiece of advice is, if you're
hiring a creator, you know,don't treat them like an agency
that you're hiring, or be morelike a director.
Trust their vision, trust whatthey do and that's what you're
(09:50):
paying them to do and they knowhow to do it best.
Eric Eden (09:54):
It seems like it wouldn't work to force people to
do things that are unnatural tothem, right?
Like if he's trying to forcelike a certain thing and that's
just not their thing, a lot ofthem wouldn't do it or they
wouldn't do it very well isprobably the the, the thing like
you're saying, that makes a lotof sense.
I think this is a bitcontroversial and in the sense
that I think back over the last25 years and there's a lot of
(10:18):
brands that have usedcelebrities and influencers
across not just digital channelsbut also TV, I think back to,
like William Shatner withPricelinecom, right?
I mean, I could go on and onwith all the examples of like
wow there shouldn't invest inthe influencer channel, it
doesn't get the ROI, and I thinkthat some of the conflict or
(10:48):
controversy there might be justaround what we're talking about
in terms of what does it take tomake it successful?
Right, because I'm sure peoplehave used well-known people for
their brand and it hasn't has itworked.
But it maybe wasn't justbecause I used a well-known
person.
It could be lots of otherreasons, right?
So I'm just curious what do youthink about this?
I'll use the word controversybecause I think people have
(11:11):
differing opinions on it.
Gabe Gordon (11:12):
Yeah, I would challenge it, right, and I'd say
, like you know, first of all,if you're targeting younger
consumers, the relevance ofcreators to traditional
celebrities is much different.
You're talking aboutgenerations that grew up
watching blogs or watching thesepeople in their feeds every day
, sometimes three posts a dayfor years, decades right.
If you're talking about, likesort of the Gen 1 YouTubers,
(11:34):
that is such an intimateexperience and relationship that
these consumers have built withthese people versus, you know,
a movie star that they might'veseen in one movie a year, or a
TV show that they saw for youknow 13 episodes, because these
people weren't just acting, theywere sharing their personal
life experiences, they weregrowing up together.
(11:55):
So the connection that thesecreators have with consumers and
how that translates to drivingpurchase decision is is huge.
Right, I'm not saying an actorcan't do the same thing in the
right context, but there's amuch bigger set of creators.
Right, there's 200 millioncreators worldwide right now.
Right, there's definitely notthat many actors.
(12:16):
So, so the connection to theconsumer is one thing, but the
ability to scale what you'redoing, right, like in example,
creators are sort of a one-stopshop.
Right, if you hire a celebrity,you have to get an agency, a
production company, you have tomake it and you have to pay for
paid media to get it out there.
Right, creators are thecreative director, the producer,
the distributor all in one,which is a huge benefit that is
(12:40):
often overlooked.
And then I'd say more trend orlike forward thinking when
you're looking at things likesocial commerce right and
platforms bringing on the socialcommerce tools, whether it's
things like affiliate marketing,are huge right.
50% of all affiliatetransactions that are driven by
creators.
That's a $10 billion marketright.
(13:01):
That's huge.
And for creators themselves,affiliate sales are starting to
surpass what they're getting inads, share revenue from the
platforms or even brand dealsthemselves, so their ability to
actually drive purchase provingitself to be very high ROI
potential where you have theright creators and the right
brands together.
Eric Eden (13:27):
I think that's a really strong case because, even
as a Gen X, for the last coupleof years I've been following a
lot of people that showed up inmy TikTok or Instagram reels or
LinkedIn or whatever, and Iwatch a lot of content from
those people on a regular basis,more than actors, and I'm like
wow when you say that I do feela much stronger connection to
them than just actor.
I saw them maybe once a year,like that's an amazing argument
(13:48):
for the power of like thecreator economy.
And I also agree about theaffiliate.
You know that I think the bestaffiliates these days are are
influencers, and so you think alot of people talk about the
difference between megainfluencers and micro
influencers.
What is your view?
Gabe Gordon (14:05):
on that, we like to say that influence does not
have a follower count, right.
If you're trying to reallydrive influence, it's not just
going to be micro people, it'snot just going to be big people,
it's going to be people ofevery size and every following.
I think that's the beauty ofinfluencer marketing is having
everybody talk about somethingto different segments and maybe
(14:26):
talking about different productbenefits right To the segmented
audiences that care about thatbenefit.
So I think it's an open slate.
But we do like to push back onwhen people say, oh, just micro
influencers are great, right.
We do like to push back on whenpeople say, oh, just micro
influencers are great, right.
If something is trulyinfluential, everybody's talking
about it to the right people,no matter how big they are.
Eric Eden (14:49):
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
And do you think thatinfluencers work in both B2C and
B2B, or is it more of a B2Cthing?
No-transcript powerful for b2btoo.
Gabe Gordon (15:45):
I was gonna say creators are entrepreneurs.
Right, they just started withvideo.
They, they are the epitome ofthe entrepreneur.
I think To your point of reallywhat is their impact.
At the top level, we're seeingcreators start their own brands,
not just sell other people'sbrands, because they see the
power of what they can do.
There's upending industries.
(16:10):
You know Logan Paul and Prime,logan Paul and KSI and Prime is
a great one of launching a newbeverage brand and driving to a
billion dollars within two years, which is incredible when you
look at sort of the legacy andthe investment that, like a gay
rights make, mr Beast is doingthe same thing in the confection
space, right.
And then you have traditionalcelebrities or influencers.
(16:31):
You know, like the Kardashians.
You know, skims over takingSpanx.
You know, rapidly, kylieCosmetics with Estee Lauder they
really are.
They're not just a creatordoing the same thing.
You know, buying wasn't.
They're changing the waythey're marketing from the
tactics and leveraging not justleveraging their circles, right,
(16:54):
they're using hype marketing.
They are bringing theiraudience around.
They're even bringing more LTOs, like the product innovation,
like.
So they're influencing everysingle part of this with their
sort of new schoolentrepreneurial perspective.
Eric Eden (17:09):
Yeah, I agree.
I think some of these examplesyou said are really awesome and
creative different approaches.
So there's a lot of greatexamples that this does work to
bolster your case further forinfluencers.
Any final thoughts,recommendations, advice for both
brands and influencers aboutmaking influencer marketing work
(17:32):
, going forward, about makinginfluencer marketing work going
forward.
Gabe Gordon (17:35):
Yeah, I think, honestly, the biggest thing is
trust these creators.
Right, they have built massiveaudiences.
Any brand that works with thecreator, the creator likely has
a larger social following thanwhat the brand has on their
organic social, so why wouldn'tyou trust them?
And I think think aboutcreators not like media units.
Right, we have creators thatare being hired in-house at
brands.
You know there was aboutcreators not like media units.
Right, we have creators thatare being hired in house at
brands.
You know, there was aconversation a couple of years
(17:57):
ago where someone was like canwe put a creator video in a paid
ad spot?
We put them in our TV?
Can we make them our creativedirector?
All these things are happening.
So, I think, keeping an openeye of what these people can do,
because they have become such apowerful creative class, you
know, in such a short amount oftime, it's hard not to notice
their skillset, and I think whatelse can we apply their
(18:19):
skillset to to help our business?
Eric Eden (18:23):
I think that's great advice.
I really appreciate you beingon the show.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your LinkedIn so
people can get in touch and chatwith you more on this topic if
they want to do so.
Thanks so much for being withus today.
We appreciate it, yeah.
Gabe Gordon (18:38):
Thank you so much, Eric, for having me.
Today we are talking about creativity and the power
of influencers, and we have agreat guest to help us talk
through this today Gabe Gordon.
Welcome to the show.
Well, thank you for having me,eric.
So why don't we start off?
You have this amazingbackground.
Why don't we start off by youjust talking for a minute or two
(00:21):
, a little bit about who you areand what you and your agency do
?
Gabe Gordon (00:28):
Appreciate it.
So I started my career aftercollege, working at the William
Morris Agency.
I originally started in music.
I had studied marketing incollege, quickly learned that I
didn't want to do music anymoreand found this small group there
.
It was called CorporateConsulting at the time, but what
they did was they helped brandstell their story in the world
(00:48):
of entertainment.
So that was everything frommaking TV shows for the NFL to
making sure General Motors carowners were in things like the
Transformers movie.
I spent 10 years there and thatwas really sort of my
introduction to advertising and,frankly, creating content
people wanted to watch.
That also had a brand impact.
After 10 years, I decided toleave and I started Reach Agency
(01:11):
.
That was in 2011,.
Around the same time thatYouTube was really getting big
and YouTube had invested in,ironically, hiring traditional
Hollywood creators to createcontent besides, you know, cats
and laser beams and dogs onskateboards to attract
advertisers, and I saw this as afantastic opportunity.
It was everything I had beendoing, you know, but with a new
(01:33):
creative class and without thered tape of network ad sales or
big Hollywood studios.
Ironically, I did start theagency.
My first client was Purina, so,ironically, I was making a lot
of content with dogs not alwayson skateboards, but we did do
content of dogs on skateboardsand lots of stuff with cats.
(01:54):
And that was really thebeginning of the inspiration for
what did become Reach Agencythe ability to tell brand
stories on new platforms withthis new creative class.
That really had really bigbusiness impact.
Eric Eden (02:10):
Awesome, and you guys just got an award for small
agency of the year.
We did, we did Nice, and so theagency tell me, if I have this
right the agency works withinfluencers and brands to help
brands get their creativemessage out the right way.
Is that broadly what you guysdo?
Gabe Gordon (02:34):
Influencer marketing is an interesting
market, right.
There's shops with dualbusiness plans.
They represent creators andthey represent brands.
There's influencer marketingcompanies that just represent
creators.
We just represent brands.
We look at marketing companiesthat just represent creators.
We just represent brands.
We look at ourselves as more ofa strategic resource.
We are the AOR for certainbrands and what we do is we help
them upstream in their strategyto figure out how to use
(02:58):
creators beyond just sponsoredposts.
Right, and this is somethingthat's changed over the years.
When we first started, we'd gethanded a TV campaign and said
find some influencers to sharethis video.
Right, we're now.
Influencers really are the corein the beginning of the
campaign and and every otherpiece of creative is derivative
from that interesting how thefocus has really changed there
(03:25):
and we're ready to be inspired.
Eric Eden (03:26):
So perhaps you could share a story with us about the
work that you and your agencyhave done with some of your
brand clients, with influencers,that have had, you know, a
remarkable impact.
We're ready to be inspired.
I love it.
Gabe Gordon (03:41):
I've got a good one for you.
So one of our clients wasNatural Vitality.
They're a magnesium supplementmost popularly known for Calm
right, and they had realizedthat there was a much broader
opportunity for the brand,beyond just magnesium and beyond
just Calm right.
We live in a world where mentalhealth is at the top of
cultural awareness and it's partof the conversation, at the top
(04:04):
of cultural awareness and it'spart of the conversation and
their product.
They expand their productportfolio to help with focus,
not just sleep, to help you alsostay calm and get you
throughout your day right, andthey needed a big splash to
drive that messaging forward.
About the same time as we werein planning, we thought that the
popular Grammy award-winningrecording artist, little John,
(04:26):
had also been making a shift ofhis own.
He moved from shots in the club,coming out of the pandemic,
really falling in love withmeditation and mental wellbeing,
and we heard he was launching ameditation one.
And we said what better way tohelp show our change than
partnering with him andpartnering with him on his
journey to do that?
(04:46):
So we wound up putting him in afull campaign showing how
Little John himself turns downto turn up with the help of
Natural Vitality's full line ofproducts, but we also put on a
meditation retreat that wouldhelp support his album release.
That helped support his albumrelease.
It was a very immersiveexperience which had, you know,
(05:12):
tomtales, as we call them, withtheir product, live meditation
with him, even had massage bedsand sound baths, everything.
There was a lot of influencersinvited to join that, but it
really helped raise awareness,not only for the product, but we
also, you know, did bring in amental health expert, dr Patrice
, to talk with him about thatand talk about the importance of
(05:32):
it and made a donation to alocal organization Very cool.
Eric Eden (05:33):
So how many influencers were involved in
this and what sort of impact didit have for the brand?
Gabe Gordon (05:44):
Yeah, so John was really our hero partner on this
and I would say it's a greatsituation because it was what we
always strive for inpartnership, where we're not
just paying him to support ourproduct.
We were supporting something hewas doing in his career as well
.
So he really was a true partnerin that essence.
But to help amplify it, we didbring about 30 additional
(06:06):
influencers in the health andwellbeing space and the mental
health space to help bring thatstory to different.
You know segments of theinternet.
It was covered on live news.
I think we got over a billionmedia impressions.
You know, I think his organicvideo launching the partnership
got over a million views in 24hours.
(06:26):
We saw a significant brand lift, but overall this led to an
increase in sales for the brandand tons of earn.
Eric Eden (06:34):
So that was one of my questions is when people get
celebrities as influencers, orwell-known people broadly, or
well-known people broadly.
I'm just curious if yourexperience is that that
generally pays off for thebrands, is it worth the cost of
doing it?
(06:54):
In most cases, yes.
Gabe Gordon (06:57):
It all depends on what your objective is and you
know who the person is and whatyou're paying right and how
you're leveraging them acrossmedia.
If you're looking digital only,it gets a lot harder right
Versus the TV campaign becauseyou're not reaching as many
people.
That being said, you can reacha broad audience.
You know, with digital year wepartnered with Jessica Simpson
(07:23):
and Chicken of the Sea to remakesort of a very pop culture
moment you know from heroriginal show Newlyweds, where
she didn't know if Chicken ofthe Sea was chicken or tuna and
we finally brought her back withher daughter and that was huge
ROI for the brand right.
Being able to capitalize andbring back a cultural moment
that you know their consumerknew and grew up with and really
being able to bring it into abrand message and, you know,
(07:43):
help launch a new product forChicken of the Sea.
Eric Eden (07:47):
And so part of it is how well it's executed on in
terms of the creative and thecampaign overall too.
I'm sure that's a variable, andif it pays off for people right
.
Gabe Gordon (07:59):
Yeah, and celebrities.
Some of them will only do verylarge campaigns.
A lot of them will partner withbrands and just do a single
post or a couple posts.
Right, there's a lot ofdifferent ways to partner with
celebrities now, more than thereever has been, at our lower
touch, where you have the rightbrand fit.
Eric Eden (08:16):
So what advice do you give brands about working
with influencers broadly, likecelebrities and otherwise?
When you take on clients, Iknow you work with some really
big brands but really it seemslike a variety of sizes.
What are some of the commonadvice you would give about how
(08:37):
to make it work with influencersand celebrities?
Gabe Gordon (08:43):
Yeah, I mean, look, we're all in on creators.
We definitely work with a lotof celebrities where it makes
sense, but we are all in oncreators because they really are
revolutioning revolutionizingadvertising as we see it right.
We're seeing huge performancefrom them, you know, when it
comes to paying media on socialchannels and digital.
We all know that.
You know most people still skipads on social and creator
(09:07):
generated content is performingway better than, you know,
typical studio produceradvertising content.
Right, they really aredisrupting that Again.
They're solving this largerproblem of don't interrupt the
experience.
Become part of the experienceright.
And where brands are allowingcreators to really bring that
human experience right and bringthose emotions whether that's,
you know, humor, empathy,inspiration or even
(09:29):
entertainment, we're seeing theresults correlate to the
creativity that we're allowingthe creators to have that free
will.
So I think my biggest singlepiece of advice is, if you're
hiring a creator, you know,don't treat them like an agency
that you're hiring, or be morelike a director.
Trust their vision, trust whatthey do and that's what you're
(09:50):
paying them to do and they knowhow to do it best.
Eric Eden (09:54):
It seems like it wouldn't work to force people to
do things that are unnatural tothem, right?
Like if he's trying to forcelike a certain thing and that's
just not their thing, a lot ofthem wouldn't do it or they
wouldn't do it very well isprobably the the, the thing like
you're saying, that makes a lotof sense.
I think this is a bitcontroversial and in the sense
that I think back over the last25 years and there's a lot of
(10:18):
brands that have usedcelebrities and influencers
across not just digital channelsbut also TV, I think back to,
like William Shatner withPricelinecom, right?
I mean, I could go on and onwith all the examples of like
wow there shouldn't invest inthe influencer channel, it
doesn't get the ROI, and I thinkthat some of the conflict or
(10:48):
controversy there might be justaround what we're talking about
in terms of what does it take tomake it successful?
Right, because I'm sure peoplehave used well-known people for
their brand and it hasn't has itworked.
But it maybe wasn't justbecause I used a well-known
person.
It could be lots of otherreasons, right?
So I'm just curious what do youthink about this?
I'll use the word controversybecause I think people have
(11:11):
differing opinions on it.
Gabe Gordon (11:12):
Yeah, I would challenge it, right, and I'd say
, like you know, first of all,if you're targeting younger
consumers, the relevance ofcreators to traditional
celebrities is much different.
You're talking aboutgenerations that grew up
watching blogs or watching thesepeople in their feeds every day
, sometimes three posts a dayfor years, decades right.
If you're talking about, likesort of the Gen 1 YouTubers,
(11:34):
that is such an intimateexperience and relationship that
these consumers have built withthese people versus, you know,
a movie star that they might'veseen in one movie a year, or a
TV show that they saw for youknow 13 episodes, because these
people weren't just acting, theywere sharing their personal
life experiences, they weregrowing up together.
(11:55):
So the connection that thesecreators have with consumers and
how that translates to drivingpurchase decision is is huge.
Right, I'm not saying an actorcan't do the same thing in the
right context, but there's amuch bigger set of creators.
Right, there's 200 millioncreators worldwide right now.
Right, there's definitely notthat many actors.
(12:16):
So, so the connection to theconsumer is one thing, but the
ability to scale what you'redoing, right, like in example,
creators are sort of a one-stopshop.
Right, if you hire a celebrity,you have to get an agency, a
production company, you have tomake it and you have to pay for
paid media to get it out there.
Right, creators are thecreative director, the producer,
the distributor all in one,which is a huge benefit that is
(12:40):
often overlooked.
And then I'd say more trend orlike forward thinking when
you're looking at things likesocial commerce right and
platforms bringing on the socialcommerce tools, whether it's
things like affiliate marketing,are huge right.
50% of all affiliatetransactions that are driven by
creators.
That's a $10 billion marketright.
(13:01):
That's huge.
And for creators themselves,affiliate sales are starting to
surpass what they're getting inads, share revenue from the
platforms or even brand dealsthemselves, so their ability to
actually drive purchase provingitself to be very high ROI
potential where you have theright creators and the right
brands together.
Eric Eden (13:27):
I think that's a really strong case because, even
as a Gen X, for the last coupleof years I've been following a
lot of people that showed up inmy TikTok or Instagram reels or
LinkedIn or whatever, and Iwatch a lot of content from
those people on a regular basis,more than actors, and I'm like
wow when you say that I do feela much stronger connection to
them than just actor.
I saw them maybe once a year,like that's an amazing argument
(13:48):
for the power of like thecreator economy.
And I also agree about theaffiliate.
You know that I think the bestaffiliates these days are are
influencers, and so you think alot of people talk about the
difference between megainfluencers and micro
influencers.
What is your view?
Gabe Gordon (14:05):
on that, we like to say that influence does not
have a follower count, right.
If you're trying to reallydrive influence, it's not just
going to be micro people, it'snot just going to be big people,
it's going to be people ofevery size and every following.
I think that's the beauty ofinfluencer marketing is having
everybody talk about somethingto different segments and maybe
(14:26):
talking about different productbenefits right To the segmented
audiences that care about thatbenefit.
So I think it's an open slate.
But we do like to push back onwhen people say, oh, just micro
influencers are great, right.
We do like to push back on whenpeople say, oh, just micro
influencers are great, right.
If something is trulyinfluential, everybody's talking
about it to the right people,no matter how big they are.
Eric Eden (14:49):
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
And do you think thatinfluencers work in both B2C and
B2B, or is it more of a B2Cthing?
No-transcript powerful for b2btoo.
Gabe Gordon (15:45):
I was gonna say creators are entrepreneurs.
Right, they just started withvideo.
They, they are the epitome ofthe entrepreneur.
I think To your point of reallywhat is their impact.
At the top level, we're seeingcreators start their own brands,
not just sell other people'sbrands, because they see the
power of what they can do.
There's upending industries.
(16:10):
You know Logan Paul and Prime,logan Paul and KSI and Prime is
a great one of launching a newbeverage brand and driving to a
billion dollars within two years, which is incredible when you
look at sort of the legacy andthe investment that, like a gay
rights make, mr Beast is doingthe same thing in the confection
space, right.
And then you have traditionalcelebrities or influencers.
(16:31):
You know, like the Kardashians.
You know, skims over takingSpanx.
You know, rapidly, kylieCosmetics with Estee Lauder they
really are.
They're not just a creatordoing the same thing.
You know, buying wasn't.
They're changing the waythey're marketing from the
tactics and leveraging not justleveraging their circles, right,
(16:54):
they're using hype marketing.
They are bringing theiraudience around.
They're even bringing more LTOs, like the product innovation,
like.
So they're influencing everysingle part of this with their
sort of new schoolentrepreneurial perspective.
Eric Eden (17:09):
Yeah, I agree.
I think some of these examplesyou said are really awesome and
creative different approaches.
So there's a lot of greatexamples that this does work to
bolster your case further forinfluencers.
Any final thoughts,recommendations, advice for both
brands and influencers aboutmaking influencer marketing work
(17:32):
, going forward, about makinginfluencer marketing work going
forward.
Gabe Gordon (17:35):
Yeah, I think, honestly, the biggest thing is
trust these creators.
Right, they have built massiveaudiences.
Any brand that works with thecreator, the creator likely has
a larger social following thanwhat the brand has on their
organic social, so why wouldn'tyou trust them?
And I think think aboutcreators not like media units.
Right, we have creators thatare being hired in-house at
brands.
You know there was aboutcreators not like media units.
Right, we have creators thatare being hired in house at
brands.
You know, there was aconversation a couple of years
(17:57):
ago where someone was like canwe put a creator video in a paid
ad spot?
We put them in our TV?
Can we make them our creativedirector?
All these things are happening.
So, I think, keeping an openeye of what these people can do,
because they have become such apowerful creative class, you
know, in such a short amount oftime, it's hard not to notice
their skillset, and I think whatelse can we apply their
(18:19):
skillset to to help our business?
Eric Eden (18:23):
I think that's great advice.
I really appreciate you beingon the show.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your LinkedIn so
people can get in touch and chatwith you more on this topic if
they want to do so.
Thanks so much for being withus today.
We appreciate it, yeah.
Gabe Gordon (18:38):
Thank you so much, Eric, for having me.
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